Pfizer cancer drug showing promise

A mid-stage trial of an experimental breast cancer medication known only as PD-0332991 has shown dramatically positive results, according to the company.

Postmenopausal women given the medication under experimental conditions were able to live more than two years without seeing their specific cancer grow worse, compared with only about seven months for people given a placebo. All patients also received cancer treatment Femara in the studies.

"It's dramatic to see this level of benefit with a new agent," study investigator Richard S. Finn, a UCLA researcher, told the Bloomberg news service.